


The Consequences of Being Human

by thesignsofserbia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Episode: s03e02 The Sign of Three, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, PTSD Sherlock, Past Torture, Pining Sherlock, Post-Reichenbach, Post-The Sign of Three, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sherlock is Alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 07:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1849774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesignsofserbia/pseuds/thesignsofserbia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes had returned to the land of the living. Reunited with his friends, his name had been cleared and he was a national hero again. But he found it difficult to identify with the role, not after two years, he was a new man. He had once said that he wasn’t a hero, he’d said that heroes didn’t exist, and that statement had never been more correct.<br/>Post The Sign of Three</p><p>inspired by this video<br/>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yMt2P2pNj0</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Consequences of Being Human

Sherlock Holmes had returned to the land of the living. Reunited with his friends, his name had been cleared and he was a national hero again. But he found it difficult to identify with the role, not after two years, he was a new man. He had once said that he wasn’t a hero, he’d said that heroes didn’t exist, and that statement had never been more correct.

 

When he was away in rare moments, when he could afford to, he had dreamt of his return, of standing in this flat, of working cases with Lestrade, of John, by his side, his loyal blogger. It had been these rare moments that had strengthened his resolve, the only thing that reminded him why he had to do this; the thoughts of home were the only things that kept him going. And now he was back, and nothing was the same.

 

He had miscalculated John’s reaction terribly, desperately using misplaced humour to try and push down the cold fear and uncertainty that filled his scarred body. He had done his best to conceal the blinding pain that tore through him as John had attacked him, tearing open sutures and traumatising his already bruised and ripped flesh, John in his fury hadn’t noticed Sherlock’s panic as he desperately tried to get the weight off of his back. But John had, under admittedly somewhat exaggerated circumstances, given him the forgiveness that he achingly needed to hear.

 

Now John Watson was married, and off somewhere on his ridiculous sex holiday. He would get home, go to work, come home to his wife and raise their child. And Sherlock? Sherlock was standing, lost in his own familiar sitting room, a spectre from the past, in a world that had moved on. Sherlock’s life had stood still for two years as he ran, he hunted, killed, slept rough and destroyed, but no one was waiting for him upon his return to life. Those two years had taken far more from him than he could have ever predicted. His suffering could be read like words on a page on the canvas of his flesh, the cumulative effect of near misses, of bullet grazes and hastily stitched knife wounds, of the slight bumps on his right ulna and collarbone where the bones had fractured and not healed properly due to lack of proper medical attention. The tremor in his hands was pronounced, on bad days it made it nigh impossible to accomplish even the simplest of tasks, frustrating him nearly to tears. But most of all his pain was showcased in the thick, angry diagonal scars marring his entire back, and his mind, oh, his mind.

 

His mind palace lay in disrepair, the gardens overgrown and hallways littered with papers, hastily stored with little time to spare. There was a door deep in the basement that had been hastily nailed shut, it rattled ominously at the most inconvenient of times, there he kept the memories of his capture in Serbia, that he had been unable to delete and equally unable to bear thinking of. His ability to judge how to act in social situations was skewed, unused in so long, more deductions that expected escaped his mouth and his concentration was shot to hell.

 

His body was almost constantly emaciated, scarred and terribly sleep deprived, but the problems in his mind were the most difficult for him to bear. He felt his greatest asset slipping through his hands like sand. His newfound aversion to still bodies of water was infuriating, and on the nights that he actually managed to sleep he woke covered in sweat to the echoes of his own screams, gasping for breath and terrified.

 

With a sigh he moved to look out the window upon the dark and empty street. Boring. Tedious. Repugnant. The flat was too quiet, it was late and even Mrs Hudson’s flat was still. There was no clinking of cups in the kitchen as John prepared tea, no shuffling coming from the barren room upstairs. Somewhere along the way all the domestic little noises that John Watson made ceased to be an irritation and instead a comfort. The flat felt bereft somehow without him, not quite like home. Which was utterly ridiculous as the flat was mostly the same as it had always been, except without John’s few possessions like his mug, the blanket on the back of his chair, his medical textbooks, and his ridiculous crime novels. But Sherlock noticed the absence of them all. The silence should have been helpful, instead it was a distraction, he felt it the most when without thinking he asked John a question or asked him to fetch something, and in his frustration at receiving no answer he would lose his concentration and turn to snap at his flatmate only to be met with an empty chair.

 

Sherlock Holmes had spent a great deal of his life alone, and it had never bothered him, after all, alone protects him, and in a world of idiots who would he want to associate with anyway? Alone was all he’d ever known. But an army veteran with a limp came into his life, and he was no longer alone, in John Watson he had found a person whose company was tolerable, and surprisingly someone who actually could stand being around him, even liked him. But over the last two years, in which he was completely isolated, had given up his life, his work and everything he owned…Sherlock realised how large a part of his life John had become. He now knew what it was like to have a friend, and what it was like to have that torn away from you. It was in Prague on a cold night, dragging his water logged body out of a river after a knife fight that had gone pear shaped, that he had lain on the bank and been hit by the overwhelming realisation that for the first time in his life, he was lonely.

 

It had been 52 hour since Sherlock had left the wedding, and he still had not slept.

 

“It’s the end of an era,” they had said. He had desperately tried to make Mrs Hudson just stop talking, saying things he didn’t want to hear, things he didn’t want to acknowledge, for acknowledging them would make them real. He refused to believe that John would fade from his life, which was unacceptable and did not bear thinking about. When his brother repeated her words, voice tinged with pity that he loathed, the door in his mind palace had rattled ominously, his chest felt tight, like he couldn’t breathe and he had to fight the urge to flee. He had a speech to make, after all.

 

He had returned, near broken but victorious. He was back in his flat, reunited with his best and only friend, but he was still alone. John didn’t live here any more, would never live here again he realised with a cold sinking feeling. He is not coming back. The words hit him like a physical blow, shattering his composure like glass. Memories flooded his mind, swirling, toxic.

 

 _“John!”_ He heard his own voice scream, praying for his friend to save him, he gripped his skull, pulling his hair as he felt the whip slice into his back, crying out in agony.  
_“Stop, please. Nonono. John!”_

 

Sherlock came back to himself kneeling on the floor of his flat, hands in his hair, he was home, and he was safe, in 221B Baker Street. Alone. He could still feel the phantom pain in his back, and he wasn’t sure if he’d actually been screaming or if it had all been in his head. Shaking, he picked himself up and gingerly lowered himself into the familiar worn leather of his chair. He’d thought that he’d won the game, but as he sat, gazing at the empty armchair, John’s empty armchair, and Moriarty’s Irish lilted voice echoed in his mind, “I’ll burn you. I’ll burn the heart out of you”, he thought, maybe he hadn’t won after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this, and feel free to leave any comment you like :)


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